Fatherhood, Part Four {That ’70s Show}

Title: Fatherhood

Chapter Title: 1989

Words: 1,211

Fandom: That ‘70’s Show

Coupling: Jackie/Hyde

Rating: T/PG-13

Author’s Note: Apologies for the delay. I was on the wrong end of a washed out road in Yellowstone National Park and had to take a four hour detour to get home. Thanks again for all the reviews and story alerts! I’ve been blown away by how much attention this story has been getting. Oh, and creative license on some of the legal mumbo jumbo, okay?

He knows the steps to this dance by heart.

After slipping out of his embrace, she will shut the door to the bathroom with a soft click. He’ll hear her rumbling through the cabinets to her stash in the back that she doesn’t think he knows about; hear water come out of the faucet as she tries to cover what she’s doing. The toilet will flush and then he’ll count to one hundred and twenty before he’ll hear the gasp of air, the sound of her body being racked with sobs. And then he’ll hear the slide of the shower curtain and her turning on the shower.

He will wait awhile longer before getting out of bed and shuffling to the bathroom. He’ll palm himself through his gray sweatpants while trying to open the bathroom door. It will be locked.

It is always locked during these mornings.

He’ll pick the lock with the bobby pin he keeps stashed above the door frame, open the door, and step into the bathroom. He will pull down his sweatpants and in one fluid motion will step out of them, kick them over to join her discarded pajamas. He will pull back the shower curtain and watch her try to turn into the stream so he will think the tears running down her face are just water droplets from the showerhead.

But he will know better.

There will be the tale tell shake of her shoulders as she tries to control herself. There will be his hands on her waist pulling her into him. There will be her head tucked under his chin. There will be the two of them standing there trying to wash away all of their disappointment.

It’s a dance they’ve been doing for the past three years. A dance they don’t talk about.

They don’t talk about how he wanted to punch the realtor for saying that the house’s spare bedroom could be a nursery. They don’t talk about the baby clothes she stashes in the closet of the spare bedroom. They don’t talk about the crack in her voice and the tears in her eyes when she overheard a sixteen-year-old girl buying music at Grooves bitch to her friends about her terrible pregnancy-induced heartburn.

They don’t talk about it with Donna or Eric or anybody else in their gang when they shoot them looks of pity as nine-year-old Betsy Kelso demands Jackie teach her how to put on makeup or two-year-old Luke Forman tries to climb into Hyde’s lap. They sure as hell don’t talk about the pamphlets Kitty Forman slips into Jackie’s purse or Hyde’s coat pocket every time they stop by her house. And they definitely do not talk about it during dinner at the Formans’ even when Kitty brings it up like she did two months ago.

“Jackie,” Kitty said from her place at the head of the dining room table. The brunette turned her attention from the peas she had been pushing across her plate to Kitty. “Did you take a look at those pamphlets I put in your purse? There’s a lot of information in there about sexual positions…”

“Kitty!” Red snapped at his wife.

“Red, this is important,” she replied. “Jackie might not be tilting her vagina –“

“For God’s sake,” Red snapped dropping his fork onto his plate with a loud clatter. “I don’t want to hear about that while I’m eating!”

“Yeah, Mom,” Eric interjected. “I don’t really want to hear about the She-Devil’s lady parts.”

Kitty frowned glancing from her son to her husband to the man she has considered her son for years now. She wanted to say something more, wanted to offer some words of advice or support or something but her red-headed daughter-in-law beat her to it.

“Have you thought about adoption?” Donna asked from her spot across the table from Hyde. It’s another question they don’t talk about and if Jackie had been sitting across the table from her, she would have offered a sharp kick to the shin. Neither of them offered up an answer to those waiting for an answer and it fell upon Red to provide an answer.

“They can’t,” he replied before shoveling another mouthful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

“Why not?” Kitty cried angered both over her husband’s answer and the fact that he knew the answer while she didn’t. Nobody told her that Hyde had approached her husband for a character reference five months ago because, honestly, people are more inclined to take Red’s word rather than hers. She is, after all, a bit of a lush. “Oooh, you could rehabilitate a broody teenager just like we did!”

“Kitty,” Red warned but Kitty keeps babbling on about how made-for-the-movies a situation like that would be – the former burnout rehabilitating a new burnout.

“I’ve got a record, okay?” Hyde interrupted. “They won’t give a baby to a guy like me.”

That was the end of that conversation. They had finished their dinner in silence, eaten dessert in silence. She has slipped away without a taking a bite of pie saying something about having work to finish up for tomorrow’s broadcast. Then, when the awkward silence became too unbearable, he had walked the block and a half down the street to the house they share. That night he apologized the only way he knows how – multiple orgasms and a whispered ‘I love you’ against the smooth skin of her shoulder.

This morning – the morning of Red’s annual Veterans Day barbeque – he holds her tight trying to stave off the disappointment. He doesn’t want to do this dance any more.

He may outweigh her, out muscle her, but she’s surprisingly quick and agile and he groans at the sound of bathroom door locking behind her. He waits to hear her usual reaction, waits for the anticipated tears to begin.

But he is completely jolted by her scream.

(He may be a Zen Master but he can’t resist her tears. Or her screams. He’d never admit it but she’s got her claws into him, and he can no longer block out the sound of her voice and notice only her body in that glorious coconut bikini. It’s what six years of marriage and five years of dating does to a man. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.)

“Steven! Steven!” She’s yelling so loudly that he flinches at the volume. If he wasn’t sitting up in bed, he would have pulled a pillow over his head to muffle the sounds. “Look! Look!”

She bounds over to him; literally seems to bounce her way onto the bed and next to him. She’s waving a white stick in one hand, and her eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. Without even letting him actually take a look, she kisses him so softly, so sweetly that not even he can quibble with her thrusting a urine covered piece of plastic under his nose.

“It’s positive!” She squeals. He grabs her hand to make her hold still so he can take a look for himself. She’s had “positives” before; super pale pink lines that amounted to nothing more than her eyes playing tricks on her. But this pink is bright and bold.

Like hot pink bright and bold.